The Dakar has finished, and once again it has proven the importance the roadbook tool. Roadbooks are not only created to drive safety, but also designed to get the best results on any competition.

Indeed, Marc Coma can prove it because at the third stage of Dakar 2012 due to a quite simple typing error, he lost more than 13 minutes over the winner of that stage, Cyril Despres.

The “road book” is a basic tool for competition pilots consisting of notes and information to guide the pilot in the different stages.

Obviously, Dakar’s roadbooks are extremely professional and require a very high level of detail due to the difficulty of the race. Actually, anybody can create its own roadbooks containing the most useful information for future trips.

Anyone wishing to take part in Dakar race must know that the usage of GPS devices is limited due to organization rules. All participants have the same GPS model provided with only a few default ‘waypoints’. These waypoints are only visible when the driver is getting near inside the radius of the waypoint (3 kilometers). These waypoints are known as WPM (waypoint masqué), or hidden waypoints.

Therefore, the roadbook navigation becomes crucial. Dakar’s roadbooks are entirely made of paper as shown in the image.

But there are also digital roadbooks that contain all the required information stored within a digital file. These roadbooks are more comfortable to create and use, so the user can easily send the trip information to the GPS and get a perfect navigation.

The roadbook is not only a valid tool for motor sports, hiking, biking or even tourism are activities that can be combined perfectly with roadbooks. CompeGPS and his software Landallow to create digital roadbooks with extremely simplicity.